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Google’s Android to aim at businesses

Google Inc plans to include support for business users in its Android operating system as soon as this year, pitting it against BlackBerry maker Research In Motion, a senior executive said.

Andy Rubin, Google’s top Android executive, said on Friday that as well as expanding consumer features like social networking and gaming, future Android versions would support businesses who give phones to employees working on the road.

“Today, we don’t support many enterprise applications but in the future, I think enterprise will be a good focus for us,” Rubin, vice president of engineering at Google, told Reuters. He added that he expected to this to happen this year.

By year-end, phone makers will have launched 15 to 20 Android phone models, Rubin said. But he declined to say when manufacturers would release models with the new business software.

Any technology company could have a tough job entering the mobile enterprise market as Rim’s BlackBerry is the favorite for many information technology managers, who have to support applications such as mobile email.

But Rubin said Google can compete by incorporating Android with existing Google apps like email, documents and calendars.

For example, corporations could cut costs on hardware for data storage if they give workers Android phones that support business applications connected to Google’s data centers.

“You can, from an enterprise perspective, dramatically control your costs,” Rubin said. “You don’t have to build out infrastructure any more. Google’s already doing it,”

Part of the strategy would be giving IT managers control over the phones their employees use.

“It’s how do you put the control in the hands of the IT manager and give him the tools to deploy all his enterprise applications on the phone, and how does he manage the phone for security?” Rubin said.

Source: reuters.com